December
21, 2006
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| Amber Doran, Ridgefield Park's lone returning starter, scored a game-high 18 points, as the Scarlets improved to 3-0 on the season with a 57-46 win over Cliffside Park. | |
CLIFFSIDE PARK -- Things have certainly changed around the Ridgefield Park girls basketball team. Last season the Lady Scarlets were led by a veteran coach and had a veteran team that won the school's first ever Bergen County championship. This year, just two starters and two other players that saw significant game time return and they do so under first-year head coach Scott Papetti.
What has stayed the same, at least through this season’s first three games, is Ridgefield Park’s ability to fill up the win column. The Scarlets withstood a spirited Cliffside Park team, turning a slight two-point third quarter lead into a 57-46 win, their third straight to open the season.
“I have the three players back that played last year, -- Danielle [McArow, Melissa [Sinclair], and Amber [Doran] -- and they have an idea of what we want to do. The rest of the girls have filled in nicely,” said Papetti. “A lot has changed, but these girls are used to winning. To do that we can’t rely on the fact that we are wearing the Ridgefield Park uniform, we have to work that much harder to compete with the good teams because of the uniform we are wearing. Other teams would love to beat Ridgefield Park and we have to match that kind intensity.”
Cliffside Park is a team that has steadily gotten better in the past three seasons and made both the state and county tournaments last year. On Thursday night, the Lady Red Raiders came out to show they could play with the upper crust in the BCSL-American Division and they came out flying.
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| Sophomore point guard Rhonda Sharif led Cliffside with 12 points. |
Senior Alyssa Guido, Cliffside Park’s leading scorer, scored seven points in the first four minutes of the game. The Raiders had the momentum and a 14-10 lead when Kim Shaw hit a baseline jumper 4:55 in.
But Cliffside paid for its aggressive start. Guido picked up her second foul on a reach-in with 1:53 to go in the opening quarter. She went to the bench, McArow scored six straight points and Ridgefield Park had the lead for good. The Scarlets led 19-17 after the first quarter and used the first 2:39 of the second to rip off a 9-2 run. Doran capped the spurt with a pull-up three pointer to give her team a 28-19 advantage.
To make matters worse, Guido returned with 4:52 to go only to be lost for the rest of the half when she fouled Doran on the fastbreak. Doran converted both free throws, made a jumper from the wing on RP’s next possession and pushed the lead into double digits for the first time at 35-24.
“We came out and played real hard and I am proud of my girls for that, they showed no fear, but there were a couple of turnovers, a couple of walks here and there, and foul trouble really hurt us,” said Larry Pinto, who is in his third year as Cliffside’s head coach. “We don’t get much respect in this league and we want to change, but maybe we were a little too fired up to start.”
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| Danielle McArow had 17 points and 8 rebounds for Ridgefield Park. |
Ridgefield Park upped its lead to 12, 36-24, on a McArow free throw, but, even without the services of Guido, the Raiders got back in it by scoring the final six points of the half. Jackie Jano put back a missed shot, sophomore point guard Rhonda Sharif went coast-to-coast and finished with a nifty left-handed layup, and Alexa Rama scored inside with :06 left.
Cliffside crept to within 38-36 when Shaw hit a shot from the elbow midway through the third quarter and the Raiders were still hanging around when Shaw hit another from just about the same spot to make it 41-38 20 seconds into the fourth. But the Scarlets were finally able to pull away over the final seven minutes.
Giana Scerbo scored six of her seven points in that span and McArow had a big offensive rebound and stick back with 4:03 to go that put her team up 51-46. She then scored from the baseline to up the lead to seven. The final 2:29 was classic Ridgefield Park as it went to the three-guard weave to close it out. The offensive set kept Cliffside from giving away its fouls easily and the clock whittled away. After a possession that lasted 1:10, the Scarlets finally took the open layup as Sinclair fed the Scerbo in the post and got the ball right back for the Scarlets’ final field goal.
“Cliffside Park is a good team and they made us work hard to win this one,” said Doran, who led all scorers with 18 points (including 7 of 7 at the free throw line), 16 of them in the first half when the game was more wide open. “The second half was just about playing smart. We had a lot of foul trouble, they had foul trouble and we had enough points to be able to hold the ball and run the spread at the end. That’s our game.”
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| Melissa Sinclair, going in for an open layup on the fastbreak, finished with 8 points for Ridgefield Park. |
McArow, who makes up for a lack of height in the middle with hustle and a soft touch around the basket, finished with 17 points. The Scarlets shared the ball well as Sinclair finished with 8, Scerbo had 7 points and Meaghan Schreck chipped in with 6.
“Last year when we had Jill [Kane], Alysha [Giarra] and Kelly [Lallave], there were a lot of places we could go to get a basket when we needed it. This year, that has to be the returning players that get those baskets and the underclassmen are trying to do what we did last year. It’s been an adjustment,” said McArow. “The biggest difference on the court is that we don’t have the height we did last year and we have to be aggressive and find ways to over come that.”
The loss dropped Cliffside Park to 2-2 on the season, but the Raiders are not going to be an easy out for any opponent. Sharif, who can obviously compete on the varsity level, led Cliffside with 12 points. Shaw, a junior, had 10, Guido added 9 and Kat Renteria, one of only two seniors in the Raiders’ starting lineup, finished with 7 points. Alexa Rama (4 points), Jano and Elyssa Weyand rounded out the scoring.
“We are getting better, we are getting there. We just have to keep working hard, improve in a couple of areas and we will be fine,” said Pinto. “I told the girls that the goals are to make the county and state tournaments and maybe steal a win or two when we get there. We can still make that happen.”
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| Senior Alyssa Guido became the first girls basketball player to reach 1,000 career points at Cliffside Park since 1996. |
NOTES: Guido became just the fourth girls basketball player in long history of Cliffside Park High School to surpass 1,000 career points, and the first to reach the milestone since 1996.
“It was a three-pointer off a rebound and I was off balance when I shot it because I got a cramp in my leg right when I was about to shoot,” said Guido, who did it last week in a loss to New Milford. “It went in and I was glad it did because there were only 13 seconds left in the game and it was at home.”
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